For Virat Kohli, the innings has just started

One of the best ODI innings ever by an Indian – 133* against Sri Lanka

When I wrote this article last year, I had no idea that most of the innings listed in it would be deemed obsolete as Virat Kohli would up the ante and continue to be even more prolific in the coming months. Over the last few months, Kohli has shown us such mastery over batting that it seems unlikely for him to be dismissed for anything less than a 50 – his last 5 innings have been 133*, 108, 66, 183 and 106.

Virat Kohli comes across as an aggressive individual, but his batting over the last couple of years has made the most excitable fans calm down and simply enjoy the Kohli carnival. Ever since that hundred against Australia at Visakhapatnam, this heir apparent to the title of India’s best after Tendulkar has amassed 2569 runs in 52 matches, at an average of 57.08. In this period of 21 months, he’s not only the highest run-scorer in ODIs but also the highest century scorer, amassing 10 hundreds and becoming the first batsman to score 12 centuries in less than 100 ODIs. He is going through a dream phase, which has got some people saying that he may even overtake Tendulkar’s records. It’s funny how people compare T20 innings to a Test innings, rating the former as a flash in the pan compared to the consistency required for the latter. But then compare a player to another whose career span isn’t even 1/5th of the other yet.

There’s no point in saying what Kohli may go on to do in future. He’s made the best of the last 21 months; he needs to do the same for at least another 10 years to overhaul Tendulkar’s record. I would rather just wait for Kohli to carve out a niche for himself (he may already have).

Virat Kohli was the 4th fastest, in the terms of innings played, to score 3000 ODI runs (75 innings). He needs to score another 304 runs in 4 innings to break Sir Viv Richard’s record (88 innings) to be the fastest to reach 4000. Even if he misses that mark, he’ll be a comfortable 2nd since the next fastest came in 96 innings (Gordon Greenidge). Is he the next greatest ODI batsman? The claim is not devoid of reason here.

Virat Kohli possesses great wrist-strokes and a fluent style of play

Another striking characteristic of Kohli’s career so far has been his consistency. In a career which started on 18th August 2008, he has had only a single instance of not scoring more than 50 in 5 consecutive matches. From 16 June 2010 to 28 August 2010, Virat Kohli played 7 innings, scoring 112 runs – 11, 18, 10, 28, 0, 8 and 37. Never before or after, has he played 5 innings without a half century or more! It really speaks volumes about the young man’s hunger to perform.

There’s also that thing which isn’t measured in numbers – the beauty of the play. Virat Kohli is easily the most compact batsman among the youngsters today. Rohit Sharma can be breathtakingly amazing on his day, but the wait for those days is extremely agonizing. Suresh Raina is an effective lower middle order batsman, but he’s no Yuvraj and his batting isn’t for the poets of the game. Manoj Tiwary seems more like Mohammad Kaif in his style of batting – digging in and cumbersome. Ajinkya Rahane is definitely more poetic, but we haven’t yet seen enough of him. But Virat Kohli, much like Gautam Gambhir, plays fluently. In football, those who mesmerize on field are described as controlling the ball as a part of their body, rather than a separate entity. The same goes with Virat Kohli in cricket. His willow seems to be a part of him – nudging, driving, and blocking the ball with consummate ease. The wrists own the leg side of play with such control that it’s difficult to not pick up a bat and try it yourself.

When he bats, the runs come to him like they’ve pledged their allegiance to him ever since he took up a bat – ones, twos, boundaries – all flowing from the willow. But remember, this is Kohli at his best. This is only the 1st act of a play, where the character is described to you, his talent and his potential is laid bare in this act. There’s much more to come.

Though he was the lone batsman to score a century for India on the ill-fated tour down under, he needs more exposure on foreign soil to gauge him as a complete batsman. Against Steyn and Morkel in Port Elizabeth, he scored 87 not out in a defeat for India, where chasing 191, India could only manage 142 in a rain-shortened match. He scored 61% of his team’s runs. In last year’s disastrous England tour, he scored a century to help his team post 304 in Cardiff, only to see his teammates throw it away in the 2nd innings. This guy can bat, and subcontinent is not his only abode.

Virat Kohli is making run-scoring look ridiculously simple these days, but it’s only a matter of time before the law of averages catches up. There’s going to be a period where Kohli will not be able to collect the runs doing the same thing he’s been doing all this while. Not everyone out there has accepted him to be the next best thing. There’s going to be a period where he’ll have a barren run but that’s where the 2nd act of his career will begin. How he copes with failure to perform and rise from that, will determine whether he’s in for a long haul, or just a flame which burnt out.